So, you’re coaching your son’s or daughter’s team this year and you’re looking forward to basketball season. You’re hoping that your players will learn and play to the best of their abilities, parents will enjoy watching the action, and everyone will have fun. To make the most of the coaching opportunity, it makes sense to you that you need to have a plan — both an overall plan and individual plans for each practice. You know that by just running a few drills and scrimmaging the rest of the time, your team won’t be ready. The plan needs to address:

What to coach and when? You need to have a plan for what basketball skills should be taught at the first practice and in the early going, and what can wait until later practices.

Fundamentals. You need to coach strategies, tactics and skills that players can carry with them to future teams — not intricate plays that future teams may not run at all. Solid man-to-man defense, the pick-and-roll, rebounding and give-and-go are skills that teams execute at every level.

How to keep you players engaged throughout the course of a long season and at every practice. How to balance repetition with variety so that kids stay interested...